Some conventional electronic devices, such as calculators, can be enabled in retail stores such that potential customers can manipulate controls to operate the device and thereby determine whether or not they wish to purchase the device. However, it is not practical to allow this type of user operation during the retail sale of portable receiving devices, such as pagers, because pagers are typically powered by low capacity batteries that become quickly depleted during normal operation of the pager. As a result, a conventional pager that was placed on display such that the user could perform conventional pager operations would require frequent replacement of the battery, which can be inconvenient and relatively expensive. Furthermore, allowing a potential customer to turn on a conventional pager to determine whether he likes the operation of the pager would be useless because the pager cannot operate normally to receive messages unless messages are being transmitted by a terminal for reception by the pager. Therefore, without constant transmission of messages to a pager on display, a customer could not operate a displayed pager to receive and present messages.
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus for allowing a customer to operate a portable receiver without frequently depleting the battery and without requiring constant message transmissions to the portable receiver.